Friday, September 23, 2016

Three Weeks, Already!

Now that The Good Luck Duck has returned her blog to 'normal' (wink wink) we realized that it has been three weeks since we last posted! 

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So, what's the word in our world?

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We spent some quality time with Nicole's folk.  Some of which included watching the Paralympics. 

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Want to gain some perspective on your own life? 

Watch a Paralympic athlete shoot a bow and arrow with their feet, swim the butterfly with no arms and only one leg or run track and play soccer completely blind.

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And, just in case you still think you've been dealt a bum rap...

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You are bound to be way better off than this guy who got his eyeballs stuck in a screen.

 

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We recently had an eventful trip from Fla back to Ga to visit with Darlene's folks and to reunite Nicole with two of her babies.

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We were neglectful in conducting our regular tire balance and rotation at the normal timeframe this last go round.  There was a location along the way and one at our destination. 

For some reason, Nicole was pretty insistent that we went ahead and did it along the journey instead of once we got to Ga.

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For some other reason, Nicole had been pretty lazy in completing the re-build of our auxiliary charging system solenoid.  So, we were still doing things manually by opening the hood.

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Just before Annie was taken back for her tire switcheroo, we remembered that we had not disconnected the aux battery.  So, Nicole ran out to do that. 

When she opened the hood she was surprised to see one of the AC / Alternator belts just 'hanging around'. 

It's a good thing we have a two belt system.  We never even knew anything had happened.

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We ignored our gut reaction to cut the belt off and decided to remount it with the thought that the other one could have some damage as well and two damaged ones are better than none for getting to the store. 

Notes for the future:  1) Do not ignore your gut reactions.  2) Two damaged belts are not better than one.

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When we started the car up again, the belt snapped and set off a chain reaction involving one end wrapping itself around the crankshaft (between the pulleys) and the other end wedging itself up under the power steering / water pump belt and causing that belt to jump a notch.

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On the bright side, belts are a relatively easy job.  Well, they were supposed to be anyway.

Many hours later with no success in tightening the now stretched out power steering belt, we decided to call it a night and enjoy the quiet of Discount Tire's parking lot. 

Completely perplexed as to why none of her wrenches seemed to be doing the trick and even trying a pair of vice grips and a hammer with no luck, Nicole set off to dreaming about that bolt.

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In the middle of the night...  epiphany! 

What about that strange looking wrench she had acquired from her Dad's old stash? 

Can't hurt.  She had tried everything else!

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Morning arrived and that wrench Nicole dreamed about did the trick.  We got that power steering pump loosened, got all belts tightened and made it to the store to purchase three new belts and do it all again. 

Before long we were back underway.

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There is a chill in the air evenings and mornings up this way.  Looks like the beginnings of Fall is upon us. 

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Before we left Florida, it looked like Fall had hit the palms.

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We've got a full plate for the rest of our time here in GA.

Suppose we ought to get to clearing that plate as we have
a specific date we need to be back in FL.

And, that's THAT.

10-4, Good Buddy.